Originally the idea behind this tank was to house breeding pairs of tropical fish from each continent. I kept this up for about a year but could not collect any fish from Europe so I am transitioning it into a tank featuring fish from Oceania and Indomalaya (which includes Australasia as based on WWF terrestrial ecozones), specifically rainbow fish because they are awesome.
Here it is circa January 2011
7/13/2011
Severe cuts in light due to blue green algae has inhibited plant growth. Currently running only one daylight spectrum 15 Watt CFL and getting roughly 0.2 watts per gallon. Surprisingly, plants have survived with this very low light for almost three months.
Severe cuts in light due to blue green algae has inhibited plant growth. Currently running only one daylight spectrum 15 Watt CFL and getting roughly 0.2 watts per gallon. Surprisingly, plants have survived with this very low light for almost three months.
8/01/11
I added fertilizer for the first time, one cap-full of Seachem Flourish, and increased the lighting by turning on another 15 Watt CFL on the center-right side of the tank. Tank essentially looks the same as above but with slightly brighter light on the right side. Current lighting is 6,400K at about 0.4-0.5 watts per gallon and 1,800 lumen (900 lumen per 15W bulb). My hope is to gradually ramp up the lighting in an attempt to spur some new plant growth without encouraging more BGA.
8/09/2011
Increased light to a total of 60 watts (4 x 15 watt cfl daylight) and set the timer up to 10 hours. Totals are now between 0.9 and 1 watt per gallon, and around 3,600 lumen (900 per bulb). Most of the plants have been removed and added to the American Riverbank setup. I left some banana plants and hornwort behind to deal with excess phosphates and nitrates. My plans are to fill most of this tank with Jungle Val.
